Trevor

From USA Today:

A new and different relaunch comes to Marvel Comics this fall, though in many ways it aims to be a greatest-hits collection picking and choosing from decades of comic-book history.

For the first time, the top publisher in the industry is freshening up its entire superhero line with 55 to 60 No. 1 issues for its books, old and new, to attract newbies and hardcore readers alike to a single, streamlined Marvel Universe of heroes and villains.

Icons such as Iron Man (in a new suit of armor) and Spider-Man, plus characters like the Vision, Steve Rogers, Agent Coulson, Ant-Man and Black Panther who have an appeal for fans of the Marvel movies, all play important roles in the upcoming slate of stories.

Miles Morales, Spider-Woman, Spider-Gwen, female Thor, Ms. Marvel and the current Captain America Sam Wilson are diverse and popular takes on classic heroes who also will be integral to this updated Marvel U, but fans can expect to see even more different supporting players like Red Wolf, a 21st-century version of Marvel's first Native American superhero from the 1970s.

"We've put the onus on the creators to come up with big changes in the lives of our characters, whether it's Spider-Man or Ms. Marvel or Daredevil or the Hulk," says Marvel editor in chief Axel Alonso. "You're going to be looking at, in certain cases, new characters inhabiting those roles, and new characters dealing with profound changes in the relationships with others around them and where they live.

"We've challenged everybody to come up with the right 'Oh (expletive)' reveal for their character to shake it up and make it interesting."

The "All-New All-Different Marvel" initiative involves the company's best and brightest writers, including Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, G. Willow Wilson, Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Charles Soule and Jeff Lemire, plus newer faces as well — UFC fighter and former pro wrestler CM Punk is penning a book starring Drax of Guardians of the Galaxy, and Alonso says to expect novelists and a next generation of talent exhibiting "diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity."

The current event Secret Wars began last month with the literal explosion of the regular Marvel Universe and destruction of the Ultimate Universe, created in 2000 to feature modern alternate versions of characters that had been around since the 1960s.

The relaunched titles this fall take place eight months after the conclusion of Secret Wars, according to Alonso. Whether there's a new creative team on the book or not, the first scene of each No. 1 will establish the hero or super-team's current status quo and hint at the fact that something's happened to change the lives of the characters in a meaningful way.

"The real beauty of that is if you're one of these fans who've been around for many years, it's a great, exciting mystery," says David Gabriel, Marvel's senior vice president for sales and marketing. "And if you're these new fans who maybe only jumped in this year when you saw the Avengers movie, you'll be able to pick up any of these comics and you will not need to know 50 years of backstory of anybody."

Alonso admits that the past year has been "tremendous" for getting new eyeballs on Marvel characters, especially with its female-led comics. The relaunched Thor comic— starring a hammer-wielding heroine that was recently revealed as Jane Foster — tripled its readership and sold more than 200,000 copies of its first issue in 2014. Spider-Gwen, which featured a parallel-universe version of Gwen Stacy spinning webs instead of Peter Parker, was even more successful, launching with more than 250,000 copies of its No. 1 in February.

And there are major upcoming debuts in the works, including the introduction of a new Wolverine in the Marvel Universe and an "incredible Hulk like no fan has ever seen before," Alonso says. "That's certain to be a topic of conversation. All the same people who yelled about female Thor are going to do the same thing about this Hulk.

However, he adds, "they're going to read the story and go, 'Oh God, they're on to something!' "

The massive Secret Wars and its tie-in series gave Marvel an opportunity to import aspects into the new Marvel Universe that had previously been the periphery, according to Alonso. Forgotten characters like Red Wolf (who appears in the upcoming Western-tinged Secret Wars: 1872 comic) could be revisited in a cool way, plus artifacts of great power and importance as well as uncharted areas and regions could add to a transformed landscape.

Still, he says, this upcoming superhero world "resembles the Marvel Universe that 60 years of readers have come to love."

Gabriel agrees that it will definitely feel familiar, especially at first. "There are tweaks and nips and tucks here but we're not re-creating, say, the Marvel Universe as the Ultimate Universe.

"This is simple: This is Marvel and if you've loved it all these years, you're going to continue to love it."

Mike86

Didn't they just barely reboot with Marvel Now? Reboots are one of the things I hate with the comic industry as much as I get why they do it.

Spiderbite

fumanstan

Basically just the fallout from Secret Wars, so it's not really anything crazy that current readers wouldn't already be aware of. I don't think previous events were really reboots, were they?

fujishig

This is certainly more drastic, but consider the new status quo set every time there's a big event:

(spoilers below for past events):




after Civil War: 50 state initiative, New Avengers on the run, Mighty Avengers replace them, Cap dead and replaced, Iron Man head of SHIELD
after Secret Invasion: Osbourne head of HAMMER, Villains take over, Dark Avengers
after Dark Reign: Cap is back as head of SHIELD, dubbed the Heroic Age, multiple Avengers teams doing their own thing (New, Secret, Academy, etc.)
Avengers vs. X-men: Marvel Now, avengers and x-men mixed up in teams all over the place, all-new X-men come from the past, Captain America goes sci-fi, Fraction and Allred on FF, new Nova, Superior Spider-man, Ms. Marvel becomes Captain Marvel, Superior Spider-man, Iron Man joins the Guardians of the Galaxy

Marvel Now in particular was a revamping of almost every line they had, making wholesale changes to characters, and most if not all with brand new number 1s. And this seems like a continuation of that. After Marvel Now, I stopped keeping up.

While I'm kinda glad they didn't just "movie-fy" the costumes and characters, I do wonder how "movie folk" are going to react when they can't find the Thor or Cap they know.

fumanstan

I never saw the big deal about the "status quo" changes and enjoyed how fluid things were (at least reading them years after the fact as a casual reader). This definitely seems like a bigger change then just big stories and events happening organically.

Bob_Bobbson

Here are a couple promo pics Marvel has released for this "All-New, All-Different" Marvel Universe.

Timber

It looks and sounds like true shit. I'm so glad I gave this up year ago.

fujishig

Alonso himself said it's not a reboot.

It's interesting to me where they're placing the formerly-known-as-the-FF members, though. Johnny's in the Inhumans title and Thing is apparently a Guardian of the Galaxy (or just really likes to coordinate costumes with Rocket). X-23 gets a Wolverine costume (that will take some getting used to), and Dr. Strange gets... an axe?

That Spider-woman costume is finally growing on me, though I think it depends on who's drawing her. The native American guy better be part of a bigger team or a really good creative team, because otherwise his book is going to tank hard.

Also, 55 to 60 new #1s? I'd hate to be a comic book store owner.

ntnon

Well, I inadvertently read the thread title as "FAIL" not "Fall," and....

ntnon

So even though the new film seems to barely bear resemblance to the F4, Marvel/Disney is splitting them up anyway..?! Is Quicksilver dead, are the X-Men being disbanded... presumably Apocalypse is long gone anyway, anything else they can do to mess with Fox..?

The Valeyard

Comic shop owners will order bundles and most of them will be in the $1 bins 6 months later. Meanwhile, Marvel will declare victory for September.

ntnon

I wonder if this is a pre-emptive integration move - align the comics and movie universe(s), but make it clear that some of the characters are up for a change...

...because contracts are (almost) up with familiar faces.

Will Natalie Portman become Thor? That's all I want to know!

ntnon

These three quotes made me chuckle.

I think many reads will read them and say "they're ON something" not 'on to' something; NATURALLY a Marvel comic will resemble the MU of the last 60 years - familiar names and costumes. What about the tone? The familiar names? The continuity?

And lastly: anyone who knows any comics fans - particularly ones of great vintage - know that they/we like nothing more than to criticise and complain. "It's not like it was," has been a common refrain since the Silver Age messed with/revised/reimagined the Golden Age heroes. So 50-odd years of whingeing behind the sheen of occasional enjoyment..

PhantomStranger

Marvel wants free marketing as always with any change or initiative they run these days. It has gotten worse since Disney acquired them, because Disney's marketing connections mean they can sucker The View or some other outlet into advertising these "sweeping" changes. I truly hope the people quoted from Marvel really don't believe their own tripe.

Except for a couple of exceptions (mostly a handful of superstar creators at both companies), I see a lot of corporate soullessness at Marvel and DC these days in their comics. The product by committee groupthink that overwhelmingly runs Hollywood is seeping into Marvel and DC as comic book companies. That is not a positive trend for quality comics.

resinrats

Oh look, they have to change existing heroes into new genders or races for sake of 'diversity'. WHY NOT MAKE BRAND NEW HEROES OF DIFFERENT RACES??????


Also, why the fuck is Steve Rogers really old? I know his super steroids ran out or something. But that doesn't explain why he aged. He was in suspended animation for most of that time. You don't age then. The time he has been aging is about the same as the other heroes. So he's in his 30s or something.

fujishig

Because nobody cares about new heroes that have no connection to existing heroes. Name me one that was created in the last decade.

Although I don't read much Marvel (or DC) monthly these days, marvel does seem to me like they focus a lot more on individual creators, giving them free reign for the most part but bringing them in for the big crossovers. DC seems a lot more corporate/editorial driven, although that seems to have changed somewhat recently with Batgirl and some others.

Josh-da-man

Looks like a fuckin' shitshow.

Xiroteus

OH COME ON!!!!! Again!?!?!?!

Lets have fifty titles with ALL-NEW in it. Keep those names original!

Marvel was already restarting their series every other month. Now lets make it even more confusing by giving titles the same names so in the end you will have a dozen titles all with the same name and will have no clue what to get if looking back at this time.

I know they do not care about such things. They collect stories in trade format and move on. I had the joy of figuring out the miss that is Marvel's numbering and naming system....jeez, easier to unbake a cake.

Spiderbite

And the art in those promo pix suck by the way. Very bland and not interesting at all.

Undeadcow

I love the double speak: our all new all different franchise is actually quite the same.It is hilarious and frustrating how shattered the titles that Disney does not have cinematic control over are. However, maybe this will backfire when movie fans start to wonder why say The Thing isn't in the next Guardians movie or Rogue doesn't debut in Avengers 9 as part of A-force. Ironically maybe the Fox movies are the only thing keeping the Marvel heritage we're use to going.I think X23 (assuming that is her) serving as Wolverine is a brilliant idea; given her past uncertainty about her identity and training as a mindless killer that could have some depth... but I'd still like them to bring normal Logan back in the future. They definitely need to bring back Captain America Steven Rodgers; the Falcon business makes little sense.

resinrats

Red Wolf's arch enemy: Stores. Sorry sir, but no shirt, no service.

Also, wtf is with Lightning Girl's arms? Super skinny arms but hilariously huge hands. New Mr Fantastic?.

Mike86

I'd be fine with this if they weren't making it the main continuity. This should be an alternate universe or something in my opinion. Some of it doesn't look bad, but some of it definitely seems to be pandering to political correctness by changing genders and races of some of heroes.

rocket1312

In general I don't have a problem with changing up the status quo. The X-Men were always my favorite and if you go back and read through Chris Claremont's 15 year run on the title, things were constantly changing. The reason he ultimately left the title the first time was because Jim Lee just wanted to go back and rehash all of the old X-Men stories he had loved growing up. Not coincidentally, that's also around the time when the series took a huge nosedive. The point is, change isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

The problem I have with all of this is as someone who does not keep up with current day comics and is instead wandering through the last decade of the Marvel universe at my own pace, all of these relaunches and reboots and renumberings and creative team shake-ups and whatever else make it impossible follow along from point a to point b to point c without doing tons of research. I can only imagine what it would be like for new readers who jump in this fall and decide they want to go back and read older material. Assuming Uncanny X-Men relaunches again with a new #1, it will be the third time since 2011. Add in the fact that the last issue of the current series will be issue #600 because Marvel constantly wants to have its cake and eat it too by having new #1's but still cashing in on the legacy numbering. And that's just one title. I couldn't even begin to explain the recent history of the Avengers line.

In the end, the only thing that really matters is whether or not the stories are good. The problem is the big two make it so hard to be fan these days. If you're not all-in on everything it's impossible to follow. And if you do get invested, forget about it, everything will change in a year or two. Perhaps the industry is on it's deathbed and they're just trying to squeeze every last dollar out of it while they still can, but I just don't see how any of this will succeed at growing the fanbase long term.

Timber

I'm not sure that's why Claremont left the first time. That was just at the beginning of the "arc" period and Claremont was a long form storyteller, not a 3 issue and done type of writer. I'll also disagree with Lee having anything to do with the nose dive. That is 100% on Scott Lobdell, he was awful on the books and was given free reign for far to long.

Chris Claremont/Jim Lee gave us repowering Magneto/Avalon. Gambit. Shi'ar war. Now that I think about it they weren't together all that long before X-Men #1. And a lot of that time was Claremont wrapping up his Siege Peralous storyline.